In that great nothing, she boils; that burning ball
Caught in eddies, by claws in remote unfathomable places
But she has her prisoners too who circle her in free fall
Silently at speeds decreed by laws made from nature’s graces

One piece of dirt and water is her special child
A tiny ball by comparison, it races round the parent’s apron string
Neither closely held nor spurned; a mother’s warm caress in distance reconciled
And there, where time has never mattered, became the nest for life to spring

Down, down, in its depths is still its ancient state
Its churning, molten, angry childhood form, rush tantrums to its face at times
The engine for the floating surface lumps, which yield to their tectonic fate
To grind and crash like restless wanderers. The push by which a mountain climbs

And blanketing this ball its vapours dance and play
A magic mixture, gaseous, in proportions, no random kind of blending
The oxygen for breath and for combustion set to such a way
Sufficient for our lungs, but not too great for fires never ending

And why this gentle angled tilt? Why such a lean of such degree?
This jaunty pose, this nod is all required for seasons through the years to pass
So it spins, this ball, the length of days and nights exchange their time to be
From such a tilt the harvest and the summer warmth, exchange for cold and icy blast

To regulate this spin of days, a gentle hand in session sits
In ways to keep the gyroscopic whirl in check; a moon, a smaller ball companion sees
To it that this axis never strays. And from the elegance of nature’s wits
Maintains the rolling waters, the ebb and flow, the very tides that rocks the seas

Without these happy accidents, what then? A lifeless rock of value stripped?
Too many, the coincidence, the happenstance, the fate, which brought all this to be
But by design and thought and care, by bold creative gifts equipped
Allowed this Earth to be the place for us to live, and through it the creator see